Using Data in Research

Library Data Archive
Fall Quarter 2017

Today's Topics

  • UCLA Library Data Archives
  • The role of data in your research
  • How to search for and acess data for research
  • Resources, tools and support available to students at UCLA
  • Publishing and Data Management Plans

UCLA Library Data Archives

(formally the Social Science Data Archive)

  • On the UCLA campus since 1961 About the Data Archive
  • Available to all UCLA faculty and students
  • Holdings include public opinion polls, census data, crime stats, political and social behavior, etc.

illustration: Rolfe Hall

https://www.library.ucla.edu/location/social-science-data-archive

Data Archive: Our services

Role of Data in Research

illustration: role of data in resaerch

Finding Out About Data Sources

  • UCLA Library Data Archive
  • Colleagues
  • Public media (newspapers, news)
  • Social media (twitter, etc)
  • Scholarly literature
  • Government reports and documents
  • Archives and project websites
  • Codebooks, questionnaires
  • Exploration of datasets

Search Strategies and Defining Your Research

  • General to specific; broad to narrow
  • Names of investigators; names of studies
  • Studies described in literature, news and websites

illustration: define your research

How do I know this study useful?

  • Raw data are not eye-readable
  • To decipher data you will use Questionnaires and Codebooks

illustration: codebook #1

What is a Questionnaire?

  • A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.

  • Questionnaires cover separate topics such as:

    • Preferences (e.g. political party)
    • Behaviors (e.g. food consumption)
    • Facts (e.g. gender)
  • Questionnaires can include indexes or scales:

    • Latent traits (e.g. personality traits)
    • Attitudes (e.g. towards immigration)
    • An index (e.g. Social Economic Status)

Questionnaire: ABC New Poll

illustration: Questionnaire ABC New Poll

What is a Codebook?

  • An overview of the study or dataset
  • Variable names and descriptions
  • Column locations (mostly this is for raw data)

May also include:

  • Test of questions if the data comes from a survey
  • Example of the Questionnaire
  • Detail on who responded to the survey

Codebook: General Social Survey

illustration: codebook #2

Codebook and Raw Data

illustration: Codebook and Raw Data

ICPSR Data Site

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research http://www.icpsr.umich.edu

illustration: ICPSR

ICPSR: Register to Access Data

illustration: ICPSR Register

ICPSR: Search by Topics

illustration: ICPSR Search by Topics

ICPSR: Search for and Compare Variables

illustration: ICPSR Search for and Compare Variables

ICPSR: Compare Variables

illustration: ICPSR Compare Variables

ICPSR: Study Page and Data

illustration: ICPSR Study Page and Data#1

ICPSR: Reading About Data

illustration: ICPSR Reading About Data

ICPSR: Publications linked to Data

illustration: ICPSR Publications linked to Data

ICPSR: Publications Linked to Data

illustration: ICPSR Publications Linked to Data

Data Sources

Data Management Plans

  • What is a Data Management Plans
  • Why do I need this?
  • What tools are available to help?

What is a Data Management Plan?

A data management plan is a document that describes what you will do with your data during your research and after you complete your research.

Why do you need this?

Getting Help with Data Management Plans

  • Data Archive
  • ICPSR

Questions?

illustration: Questions

Problems ?

The Data Archive is here to help

1120-H Rolfe
ucla-data-archive@googlegroups.com
310-825-0716

Tim Dennis, Director of the Data Archive
Jamie Jamison, Archive Staff